Getting There

Now that I have established my base of operations in distant (if not exotic) Port Angeles, you may ask yourself, "how the hell does this maniac get there?" Well, it's not such a chore if you're patient and generally love to be behind the wheel, as I am. So dear reader, here's a rough example and a timeline for getting from Port Angeles to Reno.

First off, there is no single way to get there. Add up the number of different combinations of which highway to take, which pass to cross through either the Cascades or Siskiyous/Sierras, and whether or not I have to stop for a meal or a purchase, and the possibilities are damn near endless. But for arguments' sake, I'll just go with my usual route.

3:30am: I'm just rolling out of bed, and the first thing I go to is my computer. The latest weather reports, specifically for those mountainous areas that I'll have to pass through, are utterly mandatory this time of year. Come spring and summer, I won't give a fat rat's ass about pass conditions, but right now that knowledge is paramount. Following that comes the shower and food prep, usually a mess of sandwiches for the trip to come.

4:45 - 5:00am: Departure from Port Angeles, eastbound on US101. Traffic at this time of day, no matter what day it is, will be almost nonexistent for quite some time, switching from US-101 to WA-104. After about an hour I cross the Hood Canal Floating Bridge and head south on WA-3. I finally see some traffic passing through Silverdale and Bremerton, and switch onto WA-16 in Gorst. By the way, times will be marked as (+h:mm) from departure the rest of the way, so just adapt.

+1:40: The turnoff at Gorst is actually pretty important at this point. Turning onto WA-16 here sends me to Tacoma, and the only toll I'll have to pay on the entire route at the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. So if I'm short on cash, I may skip the $4 toll bridge and remain on WA-3 to its end in Shelton, where I rejoin US-101 (which slowly winds its way along the west side of Hood Canal to reach Shelton) and pick up Interstate 5 in Olympia, instead of in Tacoma, 30 miles further north. But I've got cash and cross the Narrows at about (+2:10). If I'm travelling on a weekday, I'll hit the morning commute in Tacoma as WA-16 crosses over Nalley Valley and intersects I-5.

+2:20 - 4:00: This is a pretty straight shot down I-5, passing through Olympia, Centralia/Chehalis, Kelso/Longview, and Vancouver before crossing into Oregon at Portland's Jantzen Beach neighborhood. Even though I'm in the midst of the morning commute, Portland's effective mass-transit systems have significantly reduced traffic levels on I-5 to the point where passing through Portland is of no great concern.

+4:00 - 5:30: Portland passes by, and I climb up to the broad plateau of the Willamette River Valley. I-5 takes me south through Salem, Albany, and finally Eugene. It's getting on towards lunch right about now, and some of my favorite joints in Eugene are opening for the day, like Three Forks Grill and Chipotle Mexican Grill. Also, Eugene is my last chance to buy any equipment I may need from Guitar Center (taking advantage of not having to pay sales tax in Oregon) before I hit Nevada. But instead, I pass straight on through, and take Exit 189 to get on OR-58 to clear Willamette Pass and cross into Central Oregon.

Now, I have to digress for a moment and talk about fuel. It takes a lot of gas to get me where I need to go. My redoubtable little Ranger gets about 26-30mpg, efficient by truck standards, but enough to make me miss my little Suzuki Swift hatchback (aka The Atomic Jellybean) and its 46-50mpg. But fuel stops still have to happen. I usually stop at AM/PMs and nothing but unless the prices are better somewhere else. So I should go back to the beginning and mention that while I'm online, I also check gas prices for pretty much every step of the way, which has a footprint reaching from Port Angeles to as far as Sacramento before landing in Reno.

+5:30 - 7:00: The deep forests of the Oregon Cascades are beautiful, but generally block the signal of my satellite-radio unit, which sucks generous amounts of ass. Clearing the highest pass in the Oregon Cascades (just past 5,200 feet) eventually drops me on to the high plateau above the Klamath River Basin, and OR-58 merges on to US-97 about 9 miles north of Chemult, where a Pilot truck stop frequently beckons to me to drain the lizard, grab a Subway sub and fill the gas tank. I hate gassing up in Oregon because you're not allowed to fill your own tank there. This usually screws up my gas-mileage estimates because of a tiny hole in the fuel-delivery hose prevents the pump-jockey from topping off the tank without causing a huge mess of spilled fuel.

+7:00 - 8:10: US-97 becomes a virtual dragstrip as police presence drops to almost nothing for the first 50 miles between Chemult and Klamath Falls, then the headlong rush becomes a sedate, no-I'm-not-doing-anything-illegal-officer 55mph from the McKenzie River Valley south to Klamath Lake, and eventually Klamath Falls itself. K-Falls is usually my last fuel stop of the trip, as what few hamlets I pass by along the rest of the way feature fuel prices that would bankrupt anyone short of a millionaire.

+8:15 - 9:15: The Klamath Basin gives way to the eastern foothills of the Siskiyous and Sierras, and the oddest thing that you might come across if you don't pass through this area very often: Fruit Inspection Checkpoints. Every highway has a booth alongside the road, a few miles in from any towns close to California's borders. Y'see, fruit and vegetables brought in from out-of-state could potentially harbor bugs, spores, and other pests that could potentially be a danger to the state's massive agricultural base. So they pull over every vehicle that passes through and ask the driver if they're carring any fresh fruit or vegetables and/or their destination. Since I generally don't do so, I usually tell the nice person that the only vegetable onboard is the one doing the driving. That never fails to get a smile and a wave through. A few miles past the 'fruit stand' on CA-139 (which started out life as OR-39) is my last real question of the trip. A turnoff only marked for the villages of Lookout and Bieber (Modoc County Road 85, I think) promises a shortcut of nearly 40 miles from staying on CA-139, turning east on CA-299 near Canby, then turning south onto US-395 at Alturas for the remainder of the journey. But the little county road is bumpy and narrow, and potentially icy and snowy in winter, whereas US-395 presents little hazard to me. But the weather is fine, so onto the County Road I go.

+9:15 - 12:45: The foothills are treacherous and windy, but of no great challenge through most seasons. The scenery is beautiful, but of little interest to me. Lookout passes by as no more than few houses on a hill near the road, and Bieber is a hamlet a mile or so to the west of me as I cross CA-299 and continue along the County Road to eventually rejoin CA-139, bypassing some nasty roads I'd rather avoid no matter the season. CA-139 passes through BLM land as well as the Modoc National Forest and skirts the eastern shore of Eagle Lake before eventually depositing me into Susanville and CA-36, eastbound for Reno.

+12:45 - 14:15: By this time, I'm pretty much running on little more than caffeine and willpower. Fortunately, the going is easy as CA-36 runs into US-395 a few miles east of Susanville, and the final 70 miles or so to Bordertown is uneventful, passing by little hamlets with names like Janesville, Milford, Herlong, and Doyle before blessed freeway returns at the appropriately-named Hallelujah Junction. Eventually my goal slides into view, the reflection of the lights of the Truckee Meadows off clouds and sky preceding the actual view long before then.

+14:15 - ?: Now it's just a matter of finding where the final resting place will be, but not before grabbing my gear at my storage unit, and maybe getting a quick bite to eat somewhere. In a few days, that somewhere will likely be in Carson City at the Carson Station. At least there, Lupe will make up a killer burrito for me, followed by a well-deserved slumber.

Well, there you have it. It's a long day. Ridiculously long. But a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do to make a buck. So if you happen to be in Carson City sometime between February 3rd and the 13th, come by the Station and tell me what a crazed maniac I am, willya?

Exile On Laurel Street

Well, it's been a few weeks since I last posted, and pretty much everything I figured that was going to happen, did. My boss laid me off from my courier route, not because of anything I'd said or done but because he'd lost so many of his other accounts he couldn't afford to pay me. However, he was able to pay me before we left town, and told me that if the economy improved he'd be more than happy to hire me back should I return to Reno. We're at my mother's house in Port Angeles, where the contents of our kitchen melded quite nicely with hers, and I've cooked a standing rib roast, kebab koobedeh and other delights for the family, to great fanfare and applause.

Honestly, it's been kind of surreal being back in Port Angeles. Some things haven't changed at all, while some things have changed beyond recognition. One thing that has changed around here is the absolute obsession with "Twilight". The teen-romance/vampire craptastrophe is set in Forks, an otherwise completely unremarkable little redneck lumber town about an hour west of here. As a result of this, hordes of teen and preteen girls (and their mothers) have begun to come to the Olympic Peninsula in the last few years to see the places and sights described by the book series. Naturally, local businesses have played along, and their are references to the book, its characters and its events all over the area.

It's fucking nauseating.

But it's home, and in a time and economy when jobs are scarce, you've got to do what you've got to do to keep your head above water, so I keep my revulsion to myself. After all, I might wind up employed at some place where I'll be neck-deep in "Team Edward" and "Team Jacob" crap. That said, I still have gigs to play in Nevada, and connections to make in Washington to augment the load. I'll be back in Carson City at the beginning of February for two weeks at the Station, followed by three weeks at John Ascuaga's Nugget in Sparks as well as the Station in March. Hopefully, I'll be able to get my tattoo from Ali at No Boys Allowed then, mostly because Joy desperately wants to be there to watch me squirm.

And things aren't so bad here. We have a comfortable bedroom upstairs, with just about everything we need for the time being. My little brother has video games up the ying-yang in the room next door. Only having one bathroom in the house is kind of a bitch, but we're adapting. We even manage to have wireless internet, though that's because our next door neighbor has an unsecured wireless network in her own house. Thank you, whoever you are. And I even have a jam night to go to on Sunday night, though it'll be a little odd going to a jam hosted by my homeroom teacher from the 6th grade!

I think we'll do just fine, though. So here's to change and to what it brings. I'm ready.

Bring it on, motherfucker.

It Could Be A Lot Worse

I could be dead in a ditch in Burma.

I could be unemployed.

I could be cold.

I could be alone.

I could have no hope for the future.

I could be whining incessantly for no good reason.

----------------------------------------------------

Back to reality, Joe. I'm not dead, that's clearly obvious. I have a gig. I'm ensconced in my comfortable hotel room in Carson City with my loving wife sleeping a few feet away from me. Things aren't easy, but I still have room for optimism. I'm trying to cut back on my whining, don't know how well that's going.

Looking back, this hasn't been a great year for me, but I've come to the realization that there are more important things in life, than the bigger things. Being closer to friends and family. Being a more forgiving person to those who crossed me, or at least trying to be. Being less concerned about myself and more concerned about others. Giving more and taking less. It's an ongoing process, one that'll only finish shortly after I stop breathing.

But I have hope. Things will get better, sooner or later. I know one thing for sure. My fingernails will be a lot stronger for the experience. Merry Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Yule, and don't forget Festivus (for the rest of us), and here's to a Happy New Year for all of us.

Back To The Future?

With Joy's illness, I've had to make plans for a fighting retreat back to Washington, with the only variable in said plans depending on the status of my job as an overnight courier. Right now I'm on an enforced two-week vacation because, simply put, my boss can't afford to pay me. I knew that that the recession/depression/whatfuckingever was going to get to me sooner or later, but I still can't fight the feeling of helplessness, knowing the axe is falling one way or the other. If my boss can't bring me back by the time this gig at the Station is over, we're out of here.

That said, I'll still play with Steppen Stonz as long as is feasible. But it's also going to mean some serious downtime. I think that I've found a way around it, but it'll take some buttering up. And I have a recovering alcoholic to thank for it.

And it's not Rick Cowen.

It's a guy I first worked with several years ago, doing a fill-in gig at the New Peking in Port Angeles. His name is Wes Chapman, and he's originally from these parts. Back then he was a killer keyboardist and singer who was apparently trying to make his own version of Leaving Las Vegas, albeit without the hot-assed hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold a la Elisabeth Shue. Nowadays, he seems to have finally kicked the habit and is looking to be in better shape than he's been in for years. Unfortunately, he's also had run-ins with the local bands and agencies to the point where he's been all but blacklisted from the area's rooms. He still does piano-bar type gigs in small rooms around town, leavening them with part-time jobs (he even briefly worked with the Stonz' keyboardist for a few days at the Eldorado).

I ran into him at Diamond's, in the Ramada Inn on my route one night a few weeks ago. I told him of our situation, and he suggested that I get in touch with Norm, who led the band I played with when we first met back at the New Peking. I already have his email, and I recently found him on Facebook. Now if I could the last person from that group, my favorite Buddhist lesbian bassist in the world...... But I digress. Maybe Norm can help me get some fill-in work when I'm not here in Nevada with the Stonz. Maybe not. But there's no harm in asking. Either way, it brings up some interesting memories, of people I used to play with and hang out with when I was first getting established in the circuit back in Washington. Before Powerlight. And I have other contacts to work with as well. I have confidence that I can find gigs up there. So here's to being optimistic, and finding more work to lighten my load, as well as Joy's, and that of whoever we'll be landing with when we get back to Port Angeles. I just found out that my mom and stepdad filed for bankruptcy, and they could use our help as much as we could use theirs.

Wish me luck, eh?

A Slight Addendum, Plus Giving In To The Machine

I want to clarify something I said in my last post. When I said that Joy and I are done with Nevada, I meant to say that we're done with living here. I'll still come down to play with Steppen Stonz for as long as they need me. I have to take Joy home no later than this coming spring, because she simply can't handle another summer here. Nor could we as a couple handle the likely bills incurred by another lengthy hospital stay. So I'll just commute back and forth for the foreseeable future after we move back to Washington. I could use the tax write-off for the mileage.

And you may have noticed the Facebook button to the right of the post. Yeah, I surrendered. I gave in. Given that so many of my friends are already on Facebook as well as (or instead of) MySpace, I figured that I'd better start a profile while I had the time. And since I'm comfortably ensconced in our hotel room at the Carson Station for the next three weeks, I figured that I'd pull my desktop out of storage to have the extra computer available to work on a suitable Facebook profile. It's slow going, but it's going forward. So look at my FB profile, and tell me what you think, willya?

Holidaze and Departures

The holidays have always been weird for me. But it almost always means work as well. Ever since I started with Powerlight back in '98, I've worked just about every holiday season. Every Thanksgiving, every Christmas. This year was the first Thanksgiving I'd had off in quite a while. And after eating the cardboard that posed as the turkey my wife's daughter made, I'd have rather eaten one of those Jennie-O turkey slabs you can get at Wal-Mart for three or four bucks. And with Steppen Stonz playing the next four weeks in a row (next week at the Nugget in Sparks, the next three after that in Carson City at the Station), I'll be busy as hell. That is, if I'm still working my courier route. If not, then everything is up in the air except for Joy and I, as we'll be heading north for absolutely certain.

At least Christmas in a hotel room in Carson City is better than in a pop-up trailer in Reno. I can walk around a hotel room naked without fear of hypothermia. (Sorry about the visual!) One way or another though, it'll be our last here in Nevada. Joy's illnesses have gotten to the point where she won't be able to handle another summer here, so we'll move home no later than this upcoming May or so. Our friends and families back home are eager to see us in Olympia, Yelm, Port Angeles, and other places around the Puget Sound. I'll probably still commute to gigs in Nevada if the situation calls for it. But I think I've had just about enough of doing this for a living. I'd like to be able to do this for fun again. I don't think that's a realistic scenario here in Nevada.

I'm tired of the backstabbing. I'm tired of people making things up about me. I'm tired of playing to people who're only interested in getting another royal flush, no matter if they're eating ramen at home and the lights got turned off yesterday. I'm tired of the barely disguised desperation I see around me and within me, that feeling that the razor's edge I'm walking on is only getting sharper. That my own margins are getting narrower. That my wife's health is in decline.

I miss green.

I miss rain. Not that pelting rain we get here when thunderstorms roll through, but the gentle rain that I never had a problem walking around in, or better yet playing rugby in. To quote the Blink-182 song "Dammit", I guess that this is growing up. But growing up means dealing with the situation to the best of my ability, and that's just what I'll do for the next few weeks, until the run of gigs is over, and we'll have a better picture of what's to come. And as always dear reader, I'll keep you posted.

PS: I'm finally gonna stop being a wuss-bag and get a tattoo, from Joy's favorite artist, Ali Deceunynck at No Boys Allowed in Sparks. I should be getting it right around Christmas, So I'll post a few pictures when the deed is done.

Blast From The Past?

Joy and I just got a phone call the other day from Calvin (my old bandleader in Powerlight), letting us know that they were going to be in town this weekend. That, and that he needed Joy's help again in doing his back taxes. They haven't played a meaningful gig since they got 86'd from the Atlantis nearly six months ago, and are only coming to Reno to play for Renown Medical Center's holiday party. Driving over fourteen hundred miles round-trip for one gig, one night only, what does that tell you?

But it stirs up some interesting emotions. I quit Powerlight to save them from getting fired because of Cockbreath McPothead's jealousy, only for them to get fired the very next gig. Meanwhile, I'm working pretty steadily and trying to get our lives in order for our next step, likely a move back to Washington State and probably back to Port Angeles, where Joy could live more comfortably (not to mention closer to our families). I never stopped being friends with Calvin, but dealing with Jackie could be difficult. Y'see, after I left Powerlight, a mutual friend who works at the Atlantis told me that Jackie had blamed me for all the band's ills over the years, never mind that I'd pretty much carried the band for all that time. Now, they're in more dire straits than they've probably ever been due to Jackie's (alleged) outburst, and they're in need of our help, even if only for Joy's bookkeeping skills.

Fortunately, I won't have to deal with them for all that long, as their gig is on Friday the 13th, which is the same night as the Divine Heresy show at the New Oasis. Three of the four opening bands on the bill, I Dekay, Pain Clinic and Blasphemous Creation are friends of ours, and our favorite tattoo artist, Ali Deceunynck from No Boys Allowed will be coming along for the show as well. Her ticket was the tip we gave her for Joy's latest tattoo. And Ali will pop my cherry next month, when I get my first tattoo. I'll only have to deal with Powerlight in passing on Saturday, when Calvin will unload a few hundred pounds of paperwork on us......

Oh, joy.